


The Unfought

by Glaux_Bryonia



Category: Bleach
Genre: BAMF Kurosaki Ichigo, Character Death, Gen, Hollowfication, Ichigo saves the day, Implied Bad Future, Implied past torture, Pendulum Arc, Time Travel, not that anyone is happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-24 16:00:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10745001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glaux_Bryonia/pseuds/Glaux_Bryonia
Summary: “Like you’re one to talk,” Kensei shoots back grumpily. “Bet you didn’t see your Lieutenant going around preparing to murder evil traitors, now did you?”“I told ye he was up t’ something.”“Not this kind of something.”(Follow-up for the lovely storyBait and SwitchbyBlackkat, who was kind enough to give me permission to write this.)





	The Unfought

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Bait and Switch](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10497414) by [blackkat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat). 



> Urgh, I thought I could write a little sequel to [Blackkat's](http://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat) story, but this was actually more difficult than I expected. 
> 
> Title comes from a sub-trope of the trope ‘bait and switch’. I like to think it fits. 
> 
> Enjoy!

 

Laying on the ground, shoulder screaming from a stab wound and being forced to helplessly watch his friends and comrades bleed, Shinji curses every power in existence and Aizen in particular.

Why, _why_ does Kensei’s new Lieutenant have to turn out to be a traitor? Hell, why did Kensei pick that bastard in the first place? He warned Kensei that Aizen couldn’t be trusted, and now this!

A haze of red blurs Shinji's vision when Aizen continues to mock him and Kensei. Those would be fighting words even if everyone’s face isn’t being covered by freaky moving stuff from their mouths. Like hell is he going to lie here and take that.

He tries to fight, he really does, but it is difficult when he has three enemies and seven downed comrades to keep track of, and madness is clawing at the inside of his skull and up from the back of his throat. Even if two out of the three are not doing anything but watch for now. His body burns and his head feels like it’s slowly being crushed as it becomes encased. He has an increasingly hard time breathing around the writhing white goo that keeps filling his mouth. But he can’t just give in and give the traitor the satisfaction of seeing him defeated.

Despite his wishes he goes down anyway, and for a moment he thinks that they’re done for. Doomed to become some kind of Hollow-like monsters that do not even recognize their friends.

Shinji can’t decide whether he should be relieved when Aizen decides to kill them before they go berserk.

Just before the traitor can strike, Kisuke appears out of nowhere and very nearly succeeds in taking Aizen's head off, and Shinji’s treacherous heart surges with hope. But soon it becomes clear that Kisuke and Tessai are only enough to drive Aizen and his goons off. Aizen leaves, intact and laughing, despite Tessai’s rather spectacular parting shot.

Shinji only has a second to bite back a shout of frustration. Then there’s a deafening roar, and for a moment he thinks he lost consciousness because the world in front of him disappears in a sweeping wall of darkness. One that is made of so much aggressive reiatsu that, had his hair been a bit shorter, it would be standing _straight up_. Well, if it could, under this much pressure. He can hear Tessai and Kisuke stumble and curse under the onslaught.

When the light returns Shinji's jaw drops, because where Aizen was there’s now a freakin’ _chasm._ If it’s less than forty feet wide he will eat his haori, blood and dirt included. He can’t see how long or deep it is since he has enough difficulty keeping himself from getting dirt up his nose with every breath he takes, but he bets it is at least a hundred feet long and as deep as it is wide. Likely more. The last of Aizen's goons, Ichimaru, Shinji believes his name is, looks about as stunned as Shinji feels were he has collapsed on the ground mere inches from the path of total destruction. For once those creepy squinty eyes are wide open. Even Aizen's neat barrier is completely annihilated, when it didn’t so much as gain a crack from Tessai's strongest kidou attack.

Shinji has an increasingly bad headache. In a flash of irrational vindictiveness he hopes the walls of the new chasm will collapse under Ichimaru's weight and bury the little bastard. He can feel oblivion reaching its sticky fingers out to him and it freaks him out, no matter how much of a relief it might mean for him.

He just hopes he won’t turn into a rampaging berserker like Kensei, because that would be a royal pain in the ass.

Behind the place Aizen stood there’s a hint of movement, and Shinji has the dubious pleasure to see his own Lieutenant stepping out of the shadows of the forest just as an odd and rather disturbing mask crumbles from his face. Beneath the remains of his mask, the brat is wearing a rather disconcerting satisfied expression. He has an odd black blade in his hand Shinji has never seen before. It certainly isn’t his Shikai, which is unmistakable, and there’s no way such an ordinary-looking weapon is a Bankai either. A mystery.

He doesn’t like mysteries, even when they turn up with convenient life-saving benefits.

Kurosaki gives a cordial nod to them all, as if he didn’t just miss their little group by a couple of meters with what Shinji suspects is one of the most spectacularly destructive attacks he has ever seen.

Shinji barely manages to catch Kurosaki’s greeting before he drops unconscious for real.

“Captain Urahara, Captain Tsukabishi. Thank you for distracting him-“

XXX(xxxx)XXX(xxxx)XXX(xxxx)XXX

“ _Told you_ he wasn’t some evil mastermind. I _told you_ and you didn’t listen.”

“Yeah, and I remember _I_ told _you_ your shiny new Lieutenant was a shady bastard, but did that stop ye from letting him in? No, _‘course_ not.”

“You’re a damn hypocrite, Shinji. At least I didn’t pick my Lieutenant _because_ he gave me the creeps. I needed someone who could actually _get some work done_ without throwing tantrums like a toddler and he somehow managed to get Mashiro to approve of him! I was keeping an eye on him, anyway.”

“Some eye. Didn’t keep him from screwing us all over, yeah?” Shinji says with a scoff, ignoring the increasingly entertained looks of the others around him. They’re all nicely squirreled away in the toughest ward the Fourth and the Kidou Corps could cobble up on short notice and bad tempers, injuries, and headaches aside, they are… sort-of okay. For now anyway.

Hiyori and Hachi have been kidnapped by their respective Captains to see if there is some way to reverse the Hollowfication, despite that Kurosaki already declared a rather worrying lack of faith in that line of enquiry. Now they’ve all woken up and been briefed on the current situation, they really have too little to do while they await whatever decision other people come up with. With nerves as high-strung as they are, it’s only normal that they squabble. Shinji really could use a drink right now.

“Like you’re one to talk,” Kensei shoots back grumpily. “Bet you didn’t see _your_ Lieutenant going around preparing to murder evil traitors, now did you?”

“I told ye he was up t’ something.”

“ _Not this kind of something._ ”

“Yeah, well, it all worked out,” Shinji mutters sullenly. At least for now it has, and Shinji knows he will no longer be the only one keeping an eye on his strange subordinate. Kisuke talked about the brat with poorly concealed fascination when he gave them a summary of the information Kurosaki had given everyone about exactly what Aizen has done to them, and the other Captains show various shades of interest as well whenever he comes up in a conversation.

The summary itself was… enlightening. Because apparently, their problem isn’t going to go away on its own. Not that he really expected it to, but a guy could hope. Kurosaki already admitted to having his Inner Hollow for over a decade without it fading in the slightest, which, what? How didn’t they notice the brat was _that_ creepy? It is almost as morbidly fascinating as some of the stuff he figured out from Kisuke's summary.

As far as he can tell, no one felt comfortable enough to ask yet and Kurosaki isn’t telling, but Shinji is relatively sure he knows the name of the one who gave his Lieutenant his scars. Actually, forget ‘relatively’, he knows damn certain who did, and he doesn’t need a verbal confirmation anymore after Kisuke repeated near word-for-word what Kurosaki told them to expect of their new Inner Hollows and offered his own speculation on how the brat could possibly have figured that all out. Not without help, is his conclusion.

Help that, from what they can infer, got killed by Aizen.  

He does not like it, but Shinji has to admit he is impressed that Kurosaki didn’t show any noteworthy sign of animosity when he was introduced to Aizen. There had been nothing that particularly stood out back then, and holy hells, it makes Shinji uncomfortably aware exactly how good the brat is at repressing his emotions. If Kurosaki’s feelings regarding Aizen are anything like his own right now it’s a miracle no murder happened right in front of their faces.

Shinji wonders what else he might have missed behind the scenes. A lot, apparently. Knowing what he knows now, he is sure Aizen must have attempted to silence his former victim. But even with the advantage of hindsight, he cannot identify any moment in the past years where there were any form of assassination attempts, foiled or not. It is a kick in the teeth for his self-confidence that he can’t recall anything that might pinpoint events he is _sure_ must have taken place.

He is certain Yoruichi and Kisuke feel the sting as well. Being the Second Division Captain and former Second Division Third Seat respectively, they should have caught this huge clusterfuck of a conspiracy far sooner than they had.

Well, maybe not right at this very moment. They were informed by a highly amused Shiba Kaien who dropped by so a teeny tiny baby Shinigami could visit Lisa during lunch break without putting herself in too much danger, that Ichimaru Gin is sitting in Second’s holding cells for further interrogation. According to Kaien he’s still dazed from Kurosaki dragging him off to ‘explain why little kids shouldn’t follow insane megalomaniacs around’.

Shinji kind of wishes he could have been present for _that_ conversation. According to Kaien, Yoruichi is sniggering so much about the whole thing that Ichimaru might just get out of this in one piece. She might do something cruel like petition for his Lieutenant to adopt the kid, but other than that she’s laughing too much to do something truly terrible to the fox-faced brat.

Shinji sure isn’t excited about one of Aizen's henchmen getting off light, but it isn’t his decision to make. And honestly, he already has enough on his plate anyway.

Inner Hollow crap aside, which he _is not going to think about now,_ one thing he needs to figure out is what the hell he’s going to do with his disrespectful, secret-keeping brat of a Lieutenant. Which isn’t easy at all. On one hand, he was _right_ about the brat, but on the other, they kinda really need him right now. And that involves giving him some measure of trust. It’s enough to give anyone a headache.

Luckily, one of his fellow Captains is unexpectedly buying him some time.

“Sooo… Did you know that your lieutenant has done his best to dodge Unohana all this time?” Lisa asks with a smirk.

Shinji snickers, feeling a little sorry for the brat. Kurosaki has somehow kept himself from being cornered by Unohana ever since he set foot in Seireitei, but now most of the immediate issues are handled as well as possible for the time being, she has taken the opportunity to drag him off under the cover of ‘discussing treatments’. Then again, brat parades around with scars like those, Unohana was bound to pounce to ensure he is still fully functional and isn’t about to keel over from organ failure or a mental breakdown or something. Not that that seems likely, but Unohana is not to be argued with. Especially now they have some idea what someone with an Inner Hollow is capable off. It’s only sensible to make sure he won’t snap.

Shinji wonders if she’d be willing to give him a full report of the general severity of Kurosaki's physical and mental state in the name of keeping a superior officer up to date on the wellbeing of his subordinate.

“I had an suspicion, yeah,” he tells Lisa. “Always did the healing himself, the few times he needed it. He’s pretty good actually.”

Kensei mutters something uncomplimentary about his ‘suspicions’ and Shinji decides for once to ignore him. They have that discussion too often already.

Almost like a fated intervention, there’s a familiar flicker of reiatsu outside the room. It’s immediately followed by the door opening.

“Berry-chan! Ain’t come t’ give us more mind-blowing revelations, yeah?” Shinji greets with false cheer. “Did ye at least bring any sake with ye?”

Kurosaki snorts as he enters, tired eyes trailing around the room with something akin to approval when he sees nearly everyone sitting up straight and awake. “Sorry, I’m afraid none of you will be getting sake anytime soon, sir,” he replies, unrepentantly insubordinate beneath the thin veneer of politeness as always, even though he looks as if he hasn’t slept a wink since they were Hollowfied three days ago, and possibly a few days more. The familiarity of it is almost nice. “Captain Commander’s orders. You’re not allowed anything that might compromise your current state of stability until you’ve gained control of your new abilities.”

Ignoring the disappointed groans, he nods at Mashiro sleeping a few beds away and asks, “Kuna is still out?”

Kensei makes an amused sound. “Not ‘out’. She went straight to sleeping it off,” he tells the brat gruffly, fond exasperation colouring his words.

Kurosaki leans against the wall looking amused at this. “Sounds like her,” he agrees. Which is odd. Shinji didn’t think the kid interacted enough with her to know her habits this well. Then again, everything about the brat is still odd, no matter how much of his strangeness has been explained over the last couple of days.

“So you managed to escape Unohana’s clutches,” Love observes, studying Kurosaki as if he’s seeing him for the first time and using his sunglasses to pretend he isn’t. Shinji can’t blame him. For once, the brat isn’t wearing his gloves, and the scars on his hands are ugly. Frankly, Shinji thinks it’s a miracle the kid still has full dexterity with how deep some of the wounds must have been. “I’m surprised she let you go.”

The brat follows their gazes and looks almost uncomfortable. “Short of reopening the wounds and healing them all over again, there’s not that much that can be done about scars,” Kurosaki explains with a shrug as he fishes his gloves out of his sleeves. “I’m not really eager to try that option.”

Given that they’re almost certainly torture scars, Shinji is not surprised. No one sane would want to relive their own personal hell.

“Ye here for a reason, Berry-chan?” he asks curiously.

Kurosaki smirks crookedly. “Just finished some things and thought I’d drop by. There’s a new pile of paperwork on your desk, by the way.”

Shinji groans theatrically. The others snicker at him despite knowing that the same will be waiting for them as well. “I’m on medical leave!” he complains. “Can’t a guy get a break here?”

“No rest for the wicked except the one, sir,” Kurosaki replies dryly. There is something darkly satisfied about the way his Lieutenant holds himself as he mentions Aizen Sousuke. A few days ago that would have alarmed Shinji. Things change too damn fast nowadays. “Aizen may have done a number on you, but you can still hold a brush, can’t you? I’ll tell someone to bring it here for you.”

Shinji decides to try to hide his head beneath his pillow. He is not ready to deal with bureaucratic whining. Especially not since he isn’t even certain he’ll still have his captaincy by the time next week rolls around. He’s actually surprised he hasn’t heard anything about it yet.

“Ah, now you mention it, I actually want to ask you about him. Given your knowledge of current events, are we right to assume you already knew Aizen before you came here?” Rose asks, deceptively mild.

Kurosaki is not fooled. His amber eyes are sharp and assessing before he answers, “I did, yes.”

“Why didn’t you do something about him before this all happened then?” Lisa demands sharply, eyes piercing behind her glasses as she gestures at the hospital beds they are sitting on.

“What, and risk the bastard getting away and having an excuse to have me officially executed? No thanks,” Kurosaki shoots back, looking faintly surprised he has to explain that at all. “It’s not as if he was likely to kill you straight up. He liked to gloat too much for that. If you know his patterns he’s easy enough to predict.”

That is definitely the voice of experience talking. If they doubted the kid’s word before, this confirms it.

“What, are you saying being turned in some kind of half-Hollow is okay to you but dead isn’t?” Kensei growls.

“Well, death can’t be fixed. Inner Hollow you can be trained to handle,” the kid points out, sounding utterly reasonable. Maybe in his eyes it is. “It’s not that bad once you get the hang of it.”

“Tell that to Central 46,” Lisa says bitterly. Her Captain hasn’t visited yet because he’s too busy arguing her case for her. Because in their ‘eternal wisdom’ Central 46 issued confinement and execution orders the moment they caught wind of the existence of Inner Hollows. Unohana is stonewalling their attempts to get to them, but it is just a matter of time before they manage to send a large and brave enough force to drag them out of the Fourth Division despite her wishes.

“Oh yeah, Central. Forget Central. That stuff is solved,” Kurosaki informs them casually. “So you can quit fretting about it.”

They all straighten. Shinji only vaguely notices his pillow tumbling from his head onto the floor. “What?” Rose asks, astonished. “What do you mean, ‘solved’? They were still asking for our heads just a few hours ago!”

Kurosaki raises his bisected brow at him. “Exactly what I’m saying. All they were lacking was some perspective. I just explained a few things to them, and their magnanimous selves-“ Kurosaki rolls his eyes, which confirms it is the quote it sounds like “- decided that you will be given the chance to get your new powers under control. Judgement is now in the hands of the Captain Commander, Captain Unohana, and Captain Urahara, and I am given six months to get significant results from your training.”

They all stare. “You’re joking, aren’t you,” Love states blandly.

Kurosaki scowls at them. “Of course not. If I’d joke about something it would be your pathetic performance against two newly-made Visored. With all respect, sir, it was just painful to watch how you let yourself get kicked around.”

Kensei’s face becomes a thunderous mix of guilt and anger. Rose and Love puff up in affront. For some reason, Kurosaki looks entertained by their reactions.

Shinji just winches and has to concede their handling of the situation was clumsy at best. They should have gone for restraining kidou from the start instead of trying to fight. Though it is kinda nice to know the brat was ready to step in even then. Now his nightmares about one of them escaping and rampaging through the Rukongai can be laid to rest.

But that has nothing to do with the whole Central 46 issue. Which is so worth focusing on. For some reason, Shinji doubts getting Central off their backs was as simple as his Lieutenant makes it sound. Far as he knows, the old coots never cared that much about ‘explanations’, often preferring to come up with one of their own that gives them an excuse to eliminate the problem. It does explain why the kid looks so tired though. Arguing with the old farts must’ve been hell. Even the Captain Commander can’t always get them to listen to him.

Somewhat morbidly, Shinji wonders what the kid did to convince them to change their minds.

The kid really has a knack for understatement. And for ticking off powerful people too, as he watches the others prepare to shout at the brat.

“Just six months?” Lisa asks with a grimace, interrupting the argument before it can start. “That’s not a lot. Who else is going to help?”

“Six months is plenty,” Kurosaki states confidently. “And no one is. Captain Urahara and Captain Unohana want to be present for observation purposes, the Kidou Corps will secure the location, and maybe one of the others will drop by occasionally to check on things, but that's it. I’ll be doing the training by myself since I’m the only other Visored around.”

Kensei crosses his arms, face still dark. “You think you can handle four Captains and four Lieutenants all on your own? And get us to something the _Captain Commander_ finds acceptable in just _six months?_ ” he demands.

Kurosaki smirks at the Captain, so self-assured that it kinda makes everyone’s fingers itch to force him to tone it down a little. “Of course. Easy as pie, Captain Mugurama.”

Shinji snorts. “Don’t be arrogant, brat,” he scolds. “Us going nuts ain’t gonna be a cakewalk.”

Kurosaki scoffs, his mouth pulling down but not losing the mocking curl entirely. “It isn’t arrogance if it’s true, sir. You won’t go nuts because _I won’t let you._ I can handle training all of you without any problems,” he says firmly.

Shinji opens his mouth to refute that claim but then remembers the freakishly deep chasm and Aizen's obliterated barrier. He shuts it again, studying his Lieutenant with narrowed eyes. The others however, are not so restrained, and all raise disbelieving eyebrows.

Their expressions annoy Kurosaki quite a lot. “Oh, fuck you all. _I’m not exaggerating_.” His eyes are narrowed slits of burning amber. His lips curl in savage amusement but his smile resembles a snarl a bit too closely. “But if you really are so concerned, the Captain Commander wants me to do a demonstration tomorrow. You better be there if you’re so sceptic.” His voice drops, soft and completely serious, more of a growl than anything else. “I don’t care what you think of me, but you’re going to get trained whether you like it or not, and _no one_ is going to get executed for being out of control.”

With that declaration Kurosaki sweeps out of the room, muttering darkly about idiot captains and prejudiced morons. He leaves stunned silence in his wake.

“… How much of that do you think was true?” Lisa inquires in the hush.

Shinji slowly shakes his head. “Honestly? No clue.” Grimaces. “Don’t think I ever caught him bluffing though.”

“… _Damn_ ,” is Love’s verdict. “Okay, so maybe there is something to your conspiracy theory, Shinji. Kid _has_ to be mad. Does he always go around calling superiors idiots to their faces?”

That makes the others grin and Shinji makes a face at his fellow Captain. “Most of the time, yeah,” he says blandly.

While the others laugh, tentatively relieved despite their still very real concerns, Shinji looks down at the plain hospital sheets. Fact is, he knows that his previous assessment of his Lieutenant is about as accurate as Aizen's belief that he could get away with experimenting on Shinigami. He still isn’t convinced the kid isn’t some kind of evil mastermind – in fact, his suspicions have been augmented by several orders of magnitude – but he concedes that so far, the evil mastermind seems to be on their side. Violently so, even.

So maybe it’ll all work out.

He was right on the money with his prediction that the kid would drive him to drink though. He deeply regrets that it will be a while until he can start catching up on that.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes on how Aizen became Kensei’s lieutenant: I have a head canon that explains that. You see, I cannot imagine that Kensei knew Mashiro in canon and thought she was good Lieutenant material. So here’s what I think happened: Mashiro and Kensei were friends before and Kensei was taking too much time picking a new Lieutenant. So after some nagging, bullying, and harassing, Mashiro solved the problem by stealing the Lieutenant badge and declaring herself his Lieutenant. Then she kicked up such a fuss that Kensei threw up his hands and yelled, "okay, okay! Have it if you want it so bad! I’ll just kick you out when I’ve got someone better!" at which Mashiro shruged and declared that person would have to get past her first and better be really good. 
> 
> Enter Aizen, model Shinigami. You know he would do it to get in a position of power.
> 
> Please let me know what you thought!


End file.
